The Silence
by PigletandPooh
Summary: Left alone in the darkness, Sirius is left with little option but to reflect on where it all went wrong. Dwelling on the past is a dangerous business inside the walls of Azkaban however, and not always the comfort it promises; especially when you have a past as questionable as his.
1. Chapter 1

The darkness was absolute.

That was how he knew it was truly night time. The blackness that seemed to pool at the corners of his cell seeped closer throughout the day, creeping slowly forward to reach the wall behind him and wiping out the small amount of dim light that existed. It wasn't real light that he saw throughout the day anyway. It was filtered, passed down the long line of inmates' cells from some far away iron barred window up the corridor. It was a pale imitation of sunlight; barely bright enough to distinguish your hand in front of your face. Or it had been in the beginning, back when his days were cast in perpetual blindness. But over the years his senses became attuned to it, his eyes adapting to the darkness. So much so that now he could notice when night had fallen outside the damp prison walls.

He wished he couldn't. It was almost better when he hadn't noticed time passing. When he could truly forget there was life outside of these walls. The rise and fall of the sun was constant reminder that life was continuing without him. That people had moved on. What had it been now? 8 years? 10? How could he know? Why would he want to? It made no difference. Thinking on outside life was no help to him. Imagining where Peter was now. If he was happy with himself. Imagining what Remus thought of him. If he had a family yet. Kids and a wife. If he even still thought of his once friend.

And Harry.

Little baby Harry. If he was right, if it _had_ been eight years, the boy would be nine. Almost off to Hogwarts. Parentless and alone. He wondered if Harry even knew who his godfather was. Surely people would be talking about it. Sirius Black the mass murderer. The man who had murdered his best friends.

It didn't make him cry anymore. It didn't even upset him that much. If he let himself dwell on it, then sure; he could get angry. He could get worked up. But he was tired. More than anything, he was so fucking tired. He had a lifetime ahead of him with nothing to do but think. And in this desolate, barren spot at the corner of the world; he had nothing to think about but his own life. And where it had all went wrong.

There were times he was able to convince himself it was all a dream. Because how could this be his real life? How could James be dead? How could Peter have betrayed them? How could Peter have framed him for this? How could Remus believe it was true? How could Lily be gone? How could Harry be alone and orphaned, with no contact from any of them?

When he sat and thought about it, it wasn't difficult to pretend it wasn't real. Not difficult, but very dangerous. In here, where time ceased to exist and the very air you breathed was venomous and laced with fear; it was a very tempting, treacherous business to lose your grip on what was real and what was not. Easy to fall into, but near impossible to get out of. He'd fallen asleep to the deranged mutterings of too many cellmates not to know that it wasn't something you could take back. Cellmates that held conversations with the emptiness and cried themselves to sleep; rocking on the wet, dirty floors and hugging themselves as they sobbed wretchedly.

He wasn't there yet. He could hold out a little longer. He didn't know what he was holding out for. There was no hope for him, and he knew that. Maybe it was the hope that Remus would figure everything out. Maybe it was the hope that Dumbledore- someone- would come for him. Was still thinking of him. And it was this hope that kept the Dementors flocking to his cell. He almost welcomed their arrival. It was heart-rippingly painful; but he needed it. To remind him why he was still hoping.

The moist air dropped in temperature, his breath forming coils around his face as he closed his eyes, bracing himself. It never lasted. Just hold on to that. It always ends. Always. He leaned his head back into the wall behind him, it's surface uneven and rough; digging painfully into his mottled, unruly hair. He could hear them gliding closer, coming to pay respects to their oldest prisoners; the aisle of murders and torturers that held the deepest and darkest residence in the stone tower. Their flimsy cloaks trailed on the floor; sending whispers and soft rustles down the corridors as the cell mates began to moan softly. The screams soon followed; voices hoarse and rough from years of cursing and pleading and begging.

It would be him soon. He kept his eyes shut, not needing to see the gaunt and haggard faces staring unseeingly in the darkness; their sunken eyes burning in torment and their broken forms crawling on the coarse floor. Their lives worth less than the dirt clinging to their dry, rough skin.

He was one of them. Only he didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve to be there. It was fucking Pettigrew that was should be grovelling and whimpering in the mud, like the weak little rat he always had been. And maybe that was it. The hope he was clinging to. He wouldn't allow himself to slip into hopelessness and despair. Pettigrew was still out there; unpunished and unburdened. Sirius couldn't allow himself even the small comfort of weakness, not until Pettigrew was lying snivelling in the cell beside him. It was a mad hope, but there it was.

The whispers and cries echoing around him slowly faded and he felt the same cold ache in his bones; like an illness or wound that never really healed. Like ice seeping slowly through his blood. It pulled him from his dark cell, dragging him far away to another place, in what seemed like a thousand years ago. He recognised the setting in an instant. It was always this place to begin with. He never remembered to keep his wits about him whilst it was happening. He never held it together well enough to remind himself that it wasn't real. Every time felt like the first time. But afterwards, when they had slithered back into the dark recesses of the tower; afterwards he would remember all of it. And his memories of all the times before would return as he gradually remembered himself; coming shakily back into his _real_ existence, his eyes adjusting once more to the darkness of the cell that had held him for most of his adult life.

But firstly, it was always Grimmauld Place.


	2. Chapter 2

In the start it had confused him. As far as he knew, Dementors forced you to relive your worst memories. But the first memory Sirius re-watched was a relatively normal one. Happy even, you could say. But as the years grew longer and time stretched endlessly; he began to understand. Happy though the memory was in itself, it brought _him_ no happiness. It was nothing but another reminder of what he had lost. Of what he had failed to save.

"Sirius! Sirius _don't_!"

His brother was younger; his black curls bouncing on his head as he anxiously stared up at his brother. The Sirius in the dream was younger too; determined and grinning like a lunatic down at Regulus from the higher branches of an old oak tree. He recognised the tree as belonging to his mother; the gnarled old oak tree that used to stand in the front of her garden. Regulus was clutching a broomstick in his small hands; peering anxiously into the leaves as Sirius straightened up shakily, preparing to jump.

"Don't be ridiculous Reg. You won't get into trouble. Just throw it as I jump, okay? I'll catch it. Don't worry."

Sirius's confidence did little to soothe the younger boy, whose eyes kept darting uneasily back at the large brick house behind them, where surely their mother and father were sipping tea with Grandmother. His mother would be livid if Sirius got injured again. She had said no more climbing. And no more flying. If Sirius pulled this off then he was going to have broken both of those rules. And even if he didn't, there was a good chance he'd be _dead_.

Sirius seemed to read his thoughts, stretching a hand out and grabbing the branch above him to steady himself as he finally stood upright. He shook his head in derision at Regulus, knowing just the right buttons to press.

"Reg, don't be such a baby. Just think how cool it would be if we pulled this off? We could be stuntmen. Set up our own business. Leave here for good!"

Regulus frowned, the toes of his shiny new boots scuffing in the grass. "Why would we leave? Who would feed us?

Sirius started, peering down at him with a grin. "I would of course."

"Can't we take Kreacher?"

Sirius grimaced, growing impatient with the hesitancy of his brother. "Ew, _no_. Why would we want to take that old relic? Just throw it already! I'll jump on the count of three, okay?"

"Okay."

"One, two- THREE!"

The picture distorted, the image of eight year-old Sirius flying through the air with a grin and Regulus panicking and throwing the broomstick far too high fading, being moulded into something else. Sirius watched as his younger brother's face grew older; as his form grew taller and his shoulders filled out more; the garden around him disappearing, darkening. Suddenly Sirius recognised the layout of his old room, recognised himself on the floor; the stench of sweat and vomit heavy in the air. Regulus was shaking him awake; whispering hurriedly.

"Get up."

The edge to Regulus's voice was unmistakeable. Sirius didn't even have to work to place this memory. It was one that had haunted his sleep for years after, until his life had become so fucked up that he acquired new memories to rival it. But this had been the moment of no return. The moment that he had become so damaged and messed up that everything he touched turned to shit.

"Sirius, get up now. You've got to leave. You have to."

His stomach sunk as he watched; wishing his own younger self would get up, would listen to Regulus instead of staring resentfully up at him, lying in his own pain and misery. If he had just done as Regulus said straight away, so many things might have been different. If he hadn't pushed him away after that night. The boy's voice broke as he shook him roughly.

"Sirius please! They're- they don't know what they're talking about- it's not safe for you here."

His heart cracked as he watched his own eyes slowly beginning to understand Regulus's meaning. As he remembered that feeling of cold dread, of sickening clarity. That his own parents were going to murder him. That his own parents were going to look into the eyes of the child they'd created, the child they'd raised, and take his life from him. Because that was what he had been. _A child_. At the time, he'd seen himself as so much more. Almost of age. An adult, standing up for what he believed in. He didn't need his parents. He was fully grown and had _out grown_ them.

But years of nothing but reflection had brought clarity, perspective. He'd been a kid. Just fucking sixteen years old. Not nearly ready for everything that had happened.

And Regulus.

When he thought of how he'd been so furious at him for making this choice, for not being a _man_ and standing up for what he believed in.

He'd been just a child too. Fifteen years old and terrified. He _didn't know_ what he believed in. Sirius had been lucky, he'd had James. Regulus had been alone. Needing his older brother, who should have been there for him, instead of punishing him for the mistakes of their parents. Constantly punishing everyone. Himself. Regulus. James. Marlene.

He had ruined both of their lives. He didn't even know where his brother was now or what he was doing. And always, always at the back of his mind was that photo Crouch had shown him in another lifetime. The photo that Regulus had taken. The photo _that only Regulus_ would have known existed.

Had it been him? His own little brother? The idea tore at him, constantly gnawing at his mind. What if it had been? If it had been Regulus who killed her? Who had torn away the most important thing in his life? What if that made him inadvertently responsible? The universe's way of punishing him for not being a better brother. For not saving Regulus. The universe certainly seemed to be holding a grudge about that if his present state of affairs were anything to go by.

Again, the scene dissolved; Regulus's tear soaked face disappearing into blackness and his own horror stricken eyes floating away as suddenly he was in Marlene's bedroom, the familiar butterfly bedspread underneath him and her head on his stomach. He tried to place this memory, tried to remember what it contained and why it was important; but he couldn't.

The Sirius in this image was older than in the last, but much younger still that the present day Sirius. Seventh year maybe, or just out of school. He was reclined easily on the bed, absently fiddling with her hair as she traced circles on his stomach. She was chatting about something, but he couldn't make out exactly what it was about. But then he wasn't even trying. He was staring at her face, drinking it in, promising to remember every quick smile and nose scrunch and irritated eye-roll. Torturous as it was to see her, it was better than nothing. His life seemed to stretch endlessly in these grimy walls with nothing to do and no one to see. These memories were all he had now. Painful though they were, it was the only way he saw any of them.

The ones of Marlene were particularly difficult. She'd been gone for years before James and Lily were murdered. Sirius hadn't seen her then in anything but photographs and ever fading memories. The first time he'd seen her in these agonising flashbacks, he'd broken down and cried for what seemed like hours. The longing to hold her again was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. He hadn't really realised how much he still loved her, how much he still missed her. Despite all his promises in the aftermath of her murder; as time passed, he'd moved on as best he could. There had been other girls; but even if he hadn't realised it then, he'd spent all his life comparing them to her. And none came remotely close. Sure, as time wore on, he thought of her less. But it never ceased to hurt him when he did. Seeing her name somewhere or hearing her mentioned was a blow to the gut, every time. He'd grown so used to pretending he didn't hurt that eventually, he'd convinced himself. But in the darkness and solitude of his cell, with only the dementors to judge him; he didn't have to pretend.

"Marlene."

"Marlene."

It was a recital of his. He repeated her name over and over with reverence; fervent and intense. He repeated all of their names as they came to him, clinging to what little he could of their ghosts and shadows.

He watched warily as darkness fell in Marlene's room and the scene shifted. The setting stayed the same; Marlene's room remaining relatively untouched. Only the addition of new clothes and the change of photographs on the wall indicated the passage of time. Her curtains were spread open as the moonlight lit up her room, seemingly deserted from his statue-like stance by the window.

But the moonlight was tainted. Tainted with the faintest colouring of green.

He knew what memory this was. The one memory awful enough to finally replace his last night in Grimmauld Place as the setting of his nightmares.

He heard footsteps on the stairs and swallowed deeply as the door opened to reveal himself; younger and pale, looking more broken than he had ever seen himself. No wonder Lily and James were so worried with his behaviour. He looked possessed. Although he probably wasn't going to be winning Sanest Inmate of the year currently either.

Past Sirius released a shaky whisper, his voice cracking over a name. "Marlene."

He couldn't help himself. He followed his younger self's gaze to the floor between them both, where the girl they both loved more than life itself lay cold and still. From her position on the floor, from the angle her eyes were directed in, he could kid himself that she was looking straight at him. That her eyes saw him, and knew he was there. If he focused completely on just those eyes, he could survive this again. Pretend they were elsewhere.

But his counterpart refused to give him that comfort, begging and sobbing and crying over her frozen body. He kept shattering the illusion with his hoarse pleas, kept forcing Sirius to remember the full horror and agony of this night.

"Come on Marls."

He had dropped to her side, shaking her. Sirius felt his own heart shatter as he watched himself lose her all over again, for the hundredth time.


	3. Chapter 3

He saw her sometimes. Devoid of the dementors. When he was particularly weak. Particularly tired.

He saw all of them.

Hallucinations- visions- whatever you wanted to call them.

His mother raving about his inadequacies. His brother confessing to Marlene's murder. Blaming him for the path he had been forced down. Lily, crying over the loss of her baby boy; who now had to face the world alone. Peter laughing about all of it; taunting, jeering. Remus was a peculiar visitor when he came. Sirius was never sure what angle he'd take. Sometimes he believed that Sirius had murdered Peter and sold out James and Lily. He yelled for hours about how he should have known. About how Sirius was just like his family. Just like his brother. Just like his parents. Sometimes he knew the truth. Sometimes he knew everything. He would come and stare at Sirius with sad eyes. Eyes that were pitying; because it was Sirius's fault and they both knew it. Eyes that silently blamed him and silences that said more than words ever could. It was to this Remus that he spoke the most to. This Remus that he pleaded with and begged with. Out of all his visitors he spoke to Remus the most.

His mother was easy enough to ignore. He'd had years of dealing with her shit. Regulus was tougher to sit through. Because what defence did he have? Everything his phantom brother said was true. He apologised to the darkness over and over again; but Regulus was never satisfied. Sometimes the spectre Regulus told Sirius how it was that he'd died. That his body had been abandoned in some ditch somewhere, cold and alone and utterly forgotten. Sirius tried his best to ignore his brother when he came; but it was infinitely harder than his mother. Especially when he seemed to know exactly what to say to break Sirius and crumble him under his heel.

Lily was a mess every time she came. Bawling crying and begging to see Harry. Moaning through tears for her little boy. Sirius couldn't even bring himself to look at her. Still, her sobs echoed in his ears long after she'd departed.

Peter was surprisingly the most bearable of them all. He passed his time imagining the various different ways he would one day kill the little worm. He didn't even hear what the rat said to him. There had been once, when he bragged about killing Marlene too, that he had broken his silence. But not since, no matter how much Peter went into detail on her murder.

But Remus. Remus was his last hope. Remus had to understand. Because if Remus stilled blamed him, then his worst fears were confirmed.

He _was_ to blame.

And then came James.

Infinitely harder than all of those before him. He stood still, looking down at Sirius through red-rimmed eyes. Eyes that showed he'd been crying; but that refused to drop tears in front of Sirius. Or maybe he just couldn't cry anymore.

"I couldn't Sirius. I couldn't get to her. I couldn't save them."

His voice was quieter than the others, as broken as Sirius's own voice sounded now. And it twisted his insides so painfully he was sure he would explode. Because James was different to all the world. James was loyal. James had never let him down. It was them against _everyone_. And he, Sirius, had cost him everything. Had convinced him to trust Wormtail and had cost him Lily. Lily that he'd loved since first year. Because that was the kind of person James was. All in. So trusting and open. And he'd trusted Sirius.

He'd cost him Harry. His new born son. The child he worshipped as much as his mother. More if it were even possible. James was supposed to be the better of them, the one who got his happy ending.

The one who deserved it.

He just sat and listened when James came. Unable to say anything that would make his friend forgive him. He knew James would. But he didn't want it. He didn't deserve it. The fact that James would forgive him if he asked was the exact reason he knew he didn't deserve it. James was so much better than all of them. And Sirius had never deserved him.

He spoke with varying degrees to each of them. Sometimes he stayed silent completely. But there was only one person who remained completely silent back. One person, who for twelve years plagued his darkest nights and never breathed a word.

She sat across from him, on the rugged cold ground; her gaze searing into his. Her expression was unreadable. She never made a sound. And he sat enthralled for every one of her visits. For all of the abuse of the rest of his imaginary guests, it was this silent figure that would actually drive him into madness.

He physically ached to hear her speak. To answer the thousands of questions that had burned in his mind since her murder. To talk to her again. Even if what she had to say was terrible. Even if she just confirmed his worst nightmares. Even if she said it had been Regulus. Or Peter. Even if she said she'd never loved him. Or had moved on. Even if she said she blamed him.

He needed something from her. Not knowing was eating away at his mind. This silent statue was torture beyond anything he'd ever experienced. Having her so close and not being able to touch her or hear her- it was a constant reminder that he didn't have her at all. And he never would again.

He had nothing but the darkness for company. In the beginning he had refused to converse with the ghosts that spoke to him, haunting his every breath. He knew they weren't real. He would not give in. Would not give up. But as time wore on, his resolve relented. Was it so bad to talk to them? As long as he knew they weren't real? As long as where it mattered; he understood what was really happening here?


	4. Chapter 4

All of the inmates whispered into the nothingness. All of them spoke their secrets to the shadows that guarded them. Conversation between the inmates never happened. They never kept their wits long enough to sustain any conversation and really, there was nothing to say. Sirius had only ever once spoken to another inmate. And it was a conversation he would replay from time to time; in his lonelier hours.

"Siiiriussssss."

Her hiss was maniacal in every sense of the word, lilting and musical and haunting in the dark isolation of their still corridor. It still sent shivers down his spine hearing it. Hearing her lips smirk over his name; seeing her eyes glinting in the blackness across from him. There was something unhinged about his cousin. Something different than the living corpses that littered their aisle. Her lunacy was wilder, more alive; dangerous. Like a caged snake or trapped animal. Behind the rusted, cold bars of her cell, Bellatrix Lestrange was barely recognisable as the regal, authoritative beauty she'd once been. Her cheekbones, so high and beautiful, were now sunken and hollow; her skin waxy and pale. The only colour to be found in her face was her eyes; black and menacing, shinning in in her fevered delirium.

He showed no sign he'd heard her but a subtle stiffening in his form. And it was all she needed. She crept closer to him, lifting herself from the wall behind her and crawling slowly forward across the ground. He could hear her bare knees scraping of the rock beneath her; the flimsy prison uniform doing nothing to shield her skin from it's toothy bites. Any warmth or protection in those clothes had long since worn away. Now they were nothing more than dirty rags concealing bony skeletons.

As she neared the bars of her cell she paused, siting up and reaching out to grip one flaking black bar in her long, pale fingers as she called out to him again; pulling her face close to the bars and peering out across the shadows.

"I know you can hear me. I can hear you. Hear you talking to them. Have you gone mad little cousin? Do you think they'll save you?"

Her tone was mocking, taunting. She pressed her face closer to the bars, her skin stretched against them as she stared across at him.

"No-one's coming little cousin. You're alone."

Silence.

Silence that stretched endlessly.


End file.
